The Mold
by sora kazega
Summary: Molds are things that shape, but sometimes they don't fit. The harder one tries to make it fit, the more strain is put on it and the more prone it is to breaking. Passive aggressively Hiccup decides to use no mold at all.


Ladies and Gentlemen of the fanfiction community, I present you: my second one-shot, and once more based of off a movie too! On top of that this is the first of my works in collaboration with a Beta, a dear friend of mine: Nico Hayacinth! It wouldn't have come out as great without her! My other stories are still, sadly, in a writers block, but writing other pieces supposedly alleviates that, so voila! Now enjoy this character study of sorts!

**Disclaimer:** I don't own How to Train Your Dragon, Disney does.

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The Mold

It was well into the night, yet one could hear the clang of metal upon metal as it reverberated through the air, joined by the cracking of wood and fire. These noises made up the symphony of forging, almost primal in its nature, which was orchestrated by a small-framed youth with reddish hair. Sweat trickled down his young freckled and soot covered face as he hit the glowing piece of iron over and over with his hammer, bending the tough metal to his will. His red hair lighting up as if it were just another flame within the forgery and his green eyes shining as bright as the brightest of embers in their intensity. His brows were furrowed in utmost concentration as he used his tool to shape another.

The song of his creation sounded for an hour more, barely changing in rhythm or tone, until it ended with a loud hiss of steam as he placed his wrought iron into water. He grimaced as the heat of the steam touched his skin, but his eyes were alight with satisfaction. He pulled it out of the cold water and gazed at the now flatter piece of Iron. It was a good start because this ballad was far from over.

In fact it had just started.

This had been but the introduction, the third and last installment of the introduction, and though it was not his first solo piece it was the first of its kind. Before he had created the high-pitched songs of sharpening, the airy ones of the bellows and some other short tunes. Each nice in their own right, but mundane compared to this and incomparable to what his master could produce. He could not produce those loud gonglike noises when that man smote down with his large hammer upon the anvil, which sounded like the drums that beat on the warships when they set sail.

His new song though, it was more unique and longer than any he had created before because it was done without a mold. It was this peculiarity that brought him such satisfaction, a sort of poetic justice in his mind. Because he, Hiccup Horrendous III (by Odin and Thor how he hated that name), son of Stoick the Vast whom was chieftain of the Hairy Hooligan Tribe, did not fit the mold of a Viking.

He didn't now, never had and likely never would.

In the younger days of his youth when other children had taken to brawling with each other he had searched for the trolls that stole the left socks from his father's best friend and Master Blacksmith of Berk, Gobbler the Belch. Sometimes he still did, stubbornly trying to prove that he too could be right for once, but he supposed that their folklore was right when it stated that the more hideous and absurd one's name the better it drove off trolls and gnomes. The only perk he had gained from those expeditions was that nobody quite knew the island like him.

So unlike the others who were now adapt at fighting with weapons and just fighting in general he himself was hopeless at it. Most of the others now had muscles and compared to them he was still small, thin and his muscles, those he had acquired by working for a few years in the forge, barely showed. On top of that there was the problem of his natural clumsiness and you had just about one of the most useless people that could partake in a battle, against anything really, but most certainly when said battle was against dragons. The fact that these were most frequent in occurrence did not help.

It was for all those reasons that not only did he have the horrible name Hiccup, but his nomer wasn't something grand and awe-inspiring like " The Vast", "The Broad", "The Fierce" or even something like "the Belch", which Gobbler had earned when he had out drunken the former chieftain in ale. No, on the isle of Berk he was mostly known by the degrading name of Hiccup The Useless.

He might be the chieftain's son, but he was nonetheless, perhaps even because of that fact, the pariah of the village. People expected him to be his father's son: a great warrior. This was because eventually one day it was not just highly likely, but expected that it would be him who would have to lead this village, and it would not do for the next chief to be a blacksmith. That simply would not do at all.

It was not to say that they didn't respect Gobbler, in fact, the blonde Viking with the artificial leg and hand was one of the most respected Vikings on the island, because after all, he did make them their weapons as well as having been one of the bravest warriors until he had lost those appendages. Hiccup wasn't respected, and being a smith would not do because the leader of the village was expected to lead the Vikings into battle, not stay behind in the village. Besides, nobody wanted him to lead them into battle.

That, in their opinion, was asking for disaster.

His father, too, was aware of that fact, maybe a little bit too much. Their relationship had never been that great, but it had had some substance because they shared one thing: a love for his mother. His mother, may she rest peacefully in Asgard, had been the only one who went with him on those "hunts," the only one who would praise his skill in drawing. She'd show them to Stoick, when he himself had been too afraid to. The bearded man would grudgingly praise it and then ruffle his hair.

She had been the bridge between father and son.

Those moments, however, were just a memory now because with his mother's death things changed. His father, already known for his grudge against dragons, became even more obsessed with killing them. Vengeance had become the main driving force, and still was, though nowadays it was less raw, but not any less potent. Stoick had expected Hiccup to follow course.

Young Hiccup had however been at a loss: moping and crying because he no longer had his troll-searching partner. He was sad because he no longer got hugged before bed. Most of all he was sad because he no longer had his mother. He had then in a vain attempt drawn his mother and, perhaps to rebuild the bridge that the mother had been between himself and his father, shown it to the leader of Berk.

Instead of a smile and a ruffle of hair that the sad boy had expected and wanted Stoick had shouted that Hiccup shouldn't be drawing because that was for the weak. That he should be learning to how to fight. Moreover he should learn how to kill dragons, the very beings that had done his mother in and so many of the village's inhabitants through the generations.

"Honor your mother's memory, honor your ancestors! With actions, not pictures!"

The tirade had been followed up with an action that was burnt (oh, the Irony) forever in the young Vikings mind: the throwing of his drawing book of that time, the one that contained the drawing of his mother, into the flames. He had watched how the paper had crumpled and turned a charcoal black, how the leather hide became charred and unrecognizable. What he had seen though was the burning of the bridge, the shaky foundations that had been left and he had tried to rebuild. He had seen them turn into ashes and smoke. Any chance that a good relationship may have blossomed over their shared loss was made obsolete and it had gradually been replaced by a mutual resentment for each other.

He had been young, younger than he was now, and thus still so horribly naïve. He had for some time held the belief that this situation could be rectified and had time upon time tried to be part of a group. He had so badly wanted to be recognized by someone, anyone, but all his tries met with failure and mockery. Each try making him more of an outcast and more bitter, so his snide and sharp sarcasm was most likely a product it.

Not long after, three months at most, his father had had enough, too embarrassed most likely, and so Hiccup had been dumped at the forgery: to be out of sight and thus out of mind. Only Gobbler saw him as the actual person he was, but even then it was with pity. If there was anything that Hiccup hated more than mockery it was pity. But, Gobbler did as he was tasked and taught him the way of the forgery, and for that the Norse boy was him eternally grateful. Gobbler turned into a kind of odd uncle, a new father figure so to speak, but even The Belch had his reservations about Hiccup's skill, only allowing the sharpening of tools go unsupervised. It was for this very reason that he was currently forging in the middle of the night.

It was freedom: to for once do things without scathing comments and criticism; to for once do what he wanted to do without eyes upon him that expected him to explode and die if he did something that they were not present for; to smite down his hammer in his fury whilst the darkness of the night hung in the sky.

A Nightfury, ha!

Indeed Gobbler had not spoken wrongly when he had said it was a rewarding craft. The feeling of absolute power that coursed through him as he worked the embers and wood into flames, melted ore into colorful substances and wrought objects into being. This feeling, it is what the gods must have felt the night he was the god that ruled over all that happened in the forge.

This, as well as the fact that he could draw so well, should have made him realize that his might lay in the realm of creation and not in the realm of destruction. He was still young and naïve, though less so then before, and still wanted to belong. In this case that was to show prowess in destruction: the art of battle and death. With the passing of time he would figure this out, but that was not for a few years to come.

In that aspect he was like his current nocturnal project: in the making.

This piece of work was more than just plain stubbornness to show the inhabitants of Berk what he could do. It was being created in memoriam. He was crafting the weapon that he had brandished in those imaginary battles against the trolls. He would craft the dagger that his mother had praised his skill with, even if he back then had held a stick instead of true iron. When it was done the chieftain's son would wield his own creation and slay a dragon, a Monstrous Nightmare, for that is what had killed the women who had brought him into this world. It was perfect because he would honor the memory of his mother, he would gain recognition. He would once more be in the good graces of his father and the village's image of him would be bettered.

Yes, reflected in the raw and dented iron he saw it. How he stood there, beast slain at his feet surrounded by an amazed crowd. He saw how he would gain a new nomer. He would no longer be Hiccup the Useless, but Hiccup the Useful. How the girl he had had his eye on for the last two years would look at him with admiration instead of with disdain, as if he were a piece of dirt that was stuck on the bottom of her boot. The vision fanned the flames of his desire and so the night was once more filled with his poetic and unique song.

No living soul heard this orchestra of fire, metal and man, but perhaps the dead did.

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I watched the movie and loved it to death, immediately followed it up by watching Brave (indomitable). Yeah was in a Pixar Movie mood.

Well R&R and tell me what you guys think!

- S.K.


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